Ex-Pakistani PM Sharif arrested at Lahore airport

By

Sam Howard

Then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 21, 2016. Sharif was arrested in Lahore, Pakistan, on Friday. File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI | License Photo

July 14 (UPI) -- Police arrested former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon returning to his home country, where he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on corruption charges.

Sharif returned to Pakistan on Friday and was detained before he could disembark from his flight at the Lahore airport, Britain's The Guardian reported. One week earlier, Judge Mohammad Bashir sentenced Sharif in absentia for owning assets beyond income and failing to cooperate with Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau.

His daughter and son-in-law also were sentenced to prison terms on similar charges. The daughter, Maryam Nawaz, was arrested Friday night.

The bureau determined Sharif's family laundered money to pay for apartments in London. The 2016 Panama Papers leak revealed Sharif's children had assets and owned companies that weren't detailed on a government-ordered disclosure statement.

The 68-year-old intended to appeal his conviction. He said the military influenced the country's judiciary and is trying to influence the current campaign ahead of a July 25 election, The New York Times reported.

"Who wants to go to jail?", Sharif told The Guardian on the flight Friday. "But it is a very small price to pay for my mission, which is to establish the sanctity of the vote in Pakistan."